What a world we live in. Most of the country (and planet) is so broke they are just scraping by, while programmers have "drivers" and personal shoppers. Wouldn't want to distract those people who have to get to work every day to figure out how to sell the poor people ads!
Most people's experience with Mr. Fresco likely came from the Zeitgeist films, which were sort of a phenomenon and many people's first experience with the "vast, global conspiracy" (right as the world economy imploded in 2008). I count myself as one of those people.
Option 1: Autopilot isn't where Tesla wants it, and they are trying hard to get it up to snuff, since so much has been made about how far ahead of everyone else Tesla is.
Option 2: In the opinion of a Tesla analyst who works for a bank that underwrote Tesla capital raises, it's a strategic move because the Autopilot is so awesome that it will eat away at Model S sales, though the mechanism by which that happens is unclear. And of course, Elon Musk is known for keeping things close to the chest.
I mean, it could be option 2, but I know where I'd put my money.
>If given the choice I prefer a non-powered trunk opening
Being able to pop your trunk (and have it open) on your approach to the car is actually quite convenient. I didn't think much of it until I had the option. I wouldn't call it a deal-breaker though.
>It's a design choice toward a self-driving world, where instantaneous road notifications are less important to a person in a car than they are today.
People sure are willing to reach with their rationalizations.
You might be right. But consider that, maybe, Tesla has to remove what they can because they now realize that making a $35k EV without losing piles of money is very, very, difficult.
>at other auto companies, they are and the result is literally loss of limb and life.
Comparing the safety history of a company that has produced fewer than 200,000 vehicles ever to companies that produce many multiples of that, annually, and have been in operation for over a hundred years is ridiculous.
Man, if you can brand yourself a "tech company" the Silicon Valley technorati will apologize for anything.
>I'd bet that there is some PR firm trying to drum up anti Tesla sentiments.
Anything anti-Tesla is part of some PR conspiracy. Meanwhile, 10 vapid, fluff-pieces from Electrek or random Musk tweets show up on the front page every week.
Have you considered that, perhaps, it's not all rainbows and unicorns with this company?
>This is a brand that would benefit from stealing the popup idea
The brand is already hyper-exclusive and doing extremely well, and I didn't get the impression from the article that there is any concern about the bots.
Perhaps these people are fine doing what they're doing, and don't need to grow, grow, grow the brand. Perhaps it's Silicon Valley that should be learning some lessons here...
>He's gone on record that there's going to be an explicit or implicit write down, and China's average GDP growth is going to be well below 5% (averaging more like 2-3%) by 2020.
But I'd hardly describe that as a "reckoning". It sounds more like a predictable "regression to the mean"
China's unprecedented growth is unsustainable; people know this. Case in point: this article.
>but most people haven't even progressed past a folk understanding of economics
There are a few subjects where the average HN denizen thinks they know more than the professionals by having read a mainstream book or two. Economics is one. You can identify these people when they ask, 'How come economists couldn't predict the crisis?'
>if I could I'd take a giant antitrust bat to about half the technology sector (which would hurt profits).
That'd be nice on an island. Otherwise, have fun competing against technology behemoths from other nations, some receiving subsidization from the government.
Not sure I'd base my livelihood on fraud.